by Craig Lesley
She hadn't turned off the table lamp, so I did, checking near the phone for a number or message about Riley, but there wasn't one. However, a damp Kleenex lay on the floor beside the love seat. "Damn him," I muttered.
I didn't believe her story about the clock and went to bed angry at Riley because I figured he had called up to pester her, but she didn't want to upset me by saying anything. I turned this over for a long time, when suddenly the angry feeling changed to surprise as another idea struck. She might have been trying to call my uncle Jake, checking to see if he ever went home and letting the phone ring and ring inside the empty house.
11
OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, while Jake stayed busy with Juniper, my mother started dating a man named Franklin Worthington II who drove a brand new Chevrolet Bel Air and smelled of English Leather. Franklin worked at Sunrise Biscuits with my mother, but not in the same office, as she was quick to point out. That was against company policy.
The first time Franklin came to dinner, she made shrimp salad and cheese muffins, her standard fare. The second time, she served Rancho pork chops broiled in the oven—ketchup, slice of lemon, and onion on the top. Adding a little brown sugar to the ketchup sweetened the dish. Working on my second pork chop and studying Franklin across the table, I wondered if this was going to become steady. If my mother made Hawaiian ham, Riley's favorite, that meant serious.
Franklin seemed okay, not mean or anything, but too prissy. His clothes were color matched, his cologne too strong, and his hands accountant smooth. He vigorously sucked breath mints, and when he'd crunch them, I'd see my mother's face tighten. Franklin's car was terrific, though—two-tone beige and navy blue with a hula girl air freshener jiggling from the rearview mirror.
Two Saturdays in a row, Franklin took us for a spin and we tried a little fishing on the Lost, the accessible part you could drive along, where broad paths were beaten to the river and the banks were littered with fishing debris and beer cans. He wasn't much of a fisherman although he had new equipment, a discounted spinning rod and reel set that came shrink-wrapped in plastic.
A lure plunker, Franklin splashed out from shore, scaring the feeding fish as he bumped rocks or stirred up the mud with a wading stick he had purchased in Scotland. He claimed to have caught salmon there, but never offered to show pictures.
Jake's rule of thumb was ten percent of the fishermen catch ninety percent of the fish. Nice rainbows populated this overfished stretch of the Lost, but few people caught them. Using Jake's tips like casting a fly into the foam line where the fish wait for food, I caught some fairly nice ones. Showing up Franklin was fun. I let him try my fly rod a few times but he couldn't get the hang of it.
For these "outings," as she called them, my mother packed a picnic lunch in a wicker basket she and my father had received as a wedding gift. She prepared deviled ham sandwiches, fruit cup in icebox dishes, neatly sliced carrot and celery sticks. She spread pimento and cream cheese on the celery, but I couldn't eat mine that way. Beer for Franklin, sodas for me, a thermos of tea for herself.
She spread the picnic on an old blue Pendleton blanket and we'd eat after Franklin and I had fished a couple hours. We didn't talk much, although I remember Franklin going on about a trip he planned to see the castles on the Rhone River.
Lunch finished, I'd head back to the river while she and Franklin sat on the blanket. They'd study the sky and remark on cloud shapes—one of my mother's picnic pastimes. As I fished, I glanced back every so often, but nothing was going on. Even so, I kept them in sight.
I pretended to think that if Franklin didn't know more about fishing than he did, he was equally inept at other activities and thus of little interest to my mother. Still, I knew she wanted to come up in the world, have things a bit easier. She remained beautiful. "A bit of bloom lingered on the rose," she might comment when she felt good about herself. As soon as we had moved to Gateway, she had taken off her wedding band, and now her tan lean fingers didn't show a trace of white line.
Whether or not she told Franklin about Riley I considered her business. I realized that if she did marry again, Mother would most likely select someone professional. She as much as said so herself. Once, when I told her the story of how Riley thought she had been swimming nude with Dwight Riggins, she threw back her head and laughed. "Why don't you give me some credit? Dwight lived in Griggs and smelled like cigars and creosote." She shook her head. "Can you imagine his poor wife? No, Culver, the whole point was to get away from Griggs and get around some professional people."
She meant white-collar. I could imagine Franklin at the office, taking off his suit coat to show how hard he was working, rolling up his shirtsleeves two turns to display the fine brown hairs on his forearms.
"A person could do worse than Franklin," she had remarked the evening after he dropped us off from the first picnic. "I'm certain any house he lived in would have screen doors." She raised her chin for emphasis. "When they came and told me your father had drowned, we were stuck in a little place that swirled with flies each time you opened the door. Jake and the policemen stood right there holding it open, and I couldn't keep the flies out."
On the river, she had felt comfortable enough with Franklin to fall asleep. I knew how much she liked the soothing sound of rushing water. When I splashed ashore late afternoon with a couple decent trout, she was asleep on the blanket, one tan arm across her eyes, hair fanned out against the blue wool.
I don't know how long she had been asleep, but long enough to appear deeply relaxed. Her lips were parted, revealing her fine white teeth. I had the idea Franklin had been admiring her for a long time.
Raising his head toward me, he said, "Your mother's a remarkably pretty woman."
I gazed at her a few seconds and replied, "Pretty enough for Hollywood."
***
While Mom stayed busy with Franklin, and Jake with Juniper, I worked my tail off at the store, writing licenses, packaging worms, sacking ice, assembling and repairing bicycles. A Gateway kid never brought in a bike unless it had two flat tires and several busted spokes. Schwinn made over seventy spokes in those days, so it was never easy finding the right match. Replacing inner tubes was faster than repairing them with glue and patches, and while it was a waste, I tossed the old ones, unless the kids insisted on a repair. If they had bought a repair kit from us, often the tubes had been fixed at home half a dozen times already. With all the commotion, I seldom took time to eat lunch or go to the bathroom. Even so, I couldn't keep up.
By the time Jake drove in from the reservation, he was often an hour late for the guide trips, and both of us would scurry around the store in a half panic. Checking over the disarray, he'd shake his head and comment, "Going to hell in a handbasket."
"There's only one of me," I'd mutter.
One time we ran out of coffee and the back-room boys carried on like the end of the world. That had happened only once before, when Jake was away at elk camp for ten days. To ease the strain a little, Jake hired Jed to help out again, but he hardly ever left the stool behind the cash register. Every blue moon, he'd package a dozen worms or make coffee, and even that was weak. Jed claimed that growing up in the Depression had taught him to tolerate coffee like his relatives—thin and bitter.
Of course, the less Jake was around, the more people insisted on talking with him. Sports reporters called up to ask where the fish were biting and what lures or flies worked best. I'd tell them exactly the same information Jake would, but they brushed me off. Once a man phoned to talk about the dam and how it might affect the fishing when it was completed.
"Terrific fishing in the lake behind the dam," I said. "Boating, too, and water skiing. Mention Jake's as recreational headquarters."
"Can I quote Jake on this?" he asked.
"From the horse's mouth. This is his nephew."
But they never ran the article.
Eventually Jake became so frazzled that he asked me to call and cancel half a dozen guide trips. "Tell them I
'm under the weather. Make up some bullshit. Ask them to reschedule." His eyes were bloodshot and the lines in his face seemed deeper. "Too much burning the candle at both ends, some in the middle."
"You want me to lie straight out?"
"No, lie crooked." He grinned. "That's why you're getting paid big bucks."
Most of the dudes sounded mad when I called to tell them Jake was canceling their trip. After their initial anger cooled, I'd say, "He's suffering from gallstones." Then I'd lower my voice. "We're praying and keeping fingers crossed it's no more than that. Exploratory surgery in two weeks. Meanwhile, he's just fighting the pain."
The voice would soften at the other end. "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's rough, all right. Still, he doesn't want to be rowing you fellas through some class-five rapids and suffer an attack." And here I'd pause a moment as Jake had suggested, to allow them time to imagine the situation. "He feels terrible about letting you fellas down. But he wants to reschedule in October when the big steelhead come in. If that squares with your party." Another pause. "No extra charge to you fellas. He insists. And your deposit locks in the trip." They always took the bait and we'd fix the schedule. "Understand, I got to write this in pencil for now. Just in case..."
No one asked for his deposit back, and we got a sprinkling of get-well cards, some chocolates, several bottles of liquor, one bouquet of flowers. I took the flowers home to Mom, considering them a bonus for covering Jake's ass.
***
One afternoon Jake and Juniper showed up at the store with five of her paintings carefully wrapped so they hadn't been damaged in the pickup bed. "We need to take down some of the trophies," Jake told me. "We're hanging these."
I got out the stepladder and tried to share Jake's enthusiasm, but I wasn't sure our customers gave a hoot about art.
After climbing the ladder, Jake handed me the trophies, making a show of blowing dust off each one. "Here I go and pay my nephew union scale, and look how filthy he keeps this place." The last to come down was a mangy moosehead. For each holiday, Jake decorated the critter, now sporting Fourth of July stuff—Uncle Sam's tricolored hat, sunglasses, three skyrockets clenched between its teeth.
Juniper laughed at the getup. "I never knew you were so patriotic, Jake." Turning to me, she said, "Why did I let him talk me into this?"
"Don't worry," he said. "A little culture won't hurt these dudes. Isn't that right, Shotgun?" Without waiting for me to answer, he said, "Anyway, I own enough of this outfit to say what goes."
She handed him the first painting, wild horses on the reservation prairie. Two stallions were Appaloosas. I was amazed at how lifelike the animals appeared—almost like a photograph. Standing back, she measured the distance. "The right side needs to be lower." She crossed her arms as Jake made the adjustment. "That's fine, but I still don't know about hanging them in your store."
"All the rich dudes stopping by, we'll sell these faster than you can paint," he said.
Next they hung a painting of Fancy Dancers at a celebration. The lead dancer carried a swan feather fan and seemed to be moving.
Each painting was terrific. I could appreciate that and was eager to have my mother come see them. For the most part, she didn't like the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the store, but this gave it another dimension beyond "slaughtering poor dumb animals," as she put it.
In the third painting, three old men fished from treacherous scaffolds on the lower Lost. This was traditional Indian fishing with long-handled hoop nets they lowered into the white water. One man was lifting a salmon out; another clubbed a fish on the bank.
"What do you think of that, nephew? It's so real you can smell the fish."
I nodded. "Wish I could catch some that big."
The next painting hit me. A man sat in a pickup, perhaps headed for town. In the doorway of a log cabin, a woman wearing a blue print dress waved good-bye. A boy cradling a rifle stood beside an empty rail corral. Nobody had to tell me the boy was Kalim.
"I painted that one from an old family picture," she said. "And memory." She unwrapped the last painting. "This one really gets me."
Kalim and the RedWings were at a tournament, and by their dark uniforms you could tell they were the visitors. While the coach diagrammed a play on chalkboard, the team huddled. But Kalim wasn't studying the play with the others. His head was raised, and his eyes held a faraway gaze that saw beyond the scoreboard and crowd. With a shudder, I realized this was the same look my father wore in the fishing photo. On Kalim, the expression made me uncomfortable, and I hoped the painting would sell soon.
Jake seemed a little surprised by it, too. "That's different from the others," he pointed out. "No landscape and it's off the rez."
She nodded. "I like Kalim's eyes. Startling, aren't they? I worked hard to get those just right."
"It's something all right," I said. "Where were they playing?"
"Browning. The All-Indian Tournament. They came in second, but he scored more points than anyone else." Her eyes glistened. "Unstoppable."
"It's a hell of a likeness," Jake said. "Reminds me of when he played for Gateway."
"That's right. I thought if we hung it here, someone might remember. Come forward about his death."
"Maybe you should hang it at the lodge," Jake said.
She handed him the painting. "I've got some others at the lodge, but this seems right here. Anyway, they don't sell guns at the lodge."
Jake half turned and started to say something but stopped, then climbed the ladder and hung the painting.
I don't think Juniper intended to insult Jake with her remark and I was glad he let it slide. She had a point though. Whoever had shot Kalim probably had come into the store to buy a rifle or ammunition. Just thinking about it made my stomach churn.
When I returned from carrying the trophies to the storeroom, the two of them were still admiring her work.
I could tell how proud Juniper was. Even though she wore paint-spattered coveralls and a white painter's hat, she glowed. "Beautiful," Jake said under his breath, and I realized he was looking at her.
"Do we need to put price tags on them?" I asked.
Jake scowled. "This is art, not a garage sale."
Juniper handed me some brochures from her purse that explained her life and work, listed her shows. "Keep these at the front counter," she explained. "If anyone's interested, give him one to read."
"Each painting's two hundred dollars," Jake said. "That's a bargain. In a big city, you couldn't touch her work for that."
"At Jake's art gallery of the West, overhead is low." She lowered her voice. "I'll take less. A girl's got to eat. In a couple days, I'm going up to Central. One of the art galleries there plans a show of new artists."
At the mention of Central, Jake made a face. "Central doesn't deserve these," he said. "A bunch of retired blue-haired schoolteachers fussing around with watercolors."
"Think of all the tourists who come for the Water Pageant. They like visiting the galleries."
"Waste of time," Jake said.
While Jumper excused herself to use the restroom, I asked Jake, "You're taking her to art galleries and the Water Pageant?"
He held a finger to his lips, shushing me. "Some of her friends over there play the art game. I'm just helping out. You wouldn't catch me at Central's Water Pageant, for Christ's sake."
When Homer finished working his bakery shift, he came over, coffee cup in hand. He still had on his baker's clothes and smelled of baked bread and yeast. Flour powdered his dark eyebrows. "Jake said he did some decorating."
Homer took his time, studying each painting carefully. "Wow! Those horses look like they're running across the prairie!" He touched two fingers to his baker's cap as a kind of salute. "Never thought Jake was such a classy guy."
"One of these would look real good hanging in your bakery, Homer. Maybe that one of the old Indian man and the sheep. When Indians come into your shop, I bet they'd like seeing that painting."
"It's a beaut all right," he said, squinting at the painting. "No price tag on it. That means too rich for my blood."
***
Some days, before work, I'd hike the half mile to the hobo jungle under the railroad tracks. This featured cardboard and tin lean-tos and a cooking fire. Riley had warned me that sometimes hoboes grabbed young boys to bugger them, so I never got too close. When I grew older and knew what Riley meant, I carried a stockman's knife with two strong blades, just in case. But the hoboes were buried deep in bedrolls and never stirred. I heard their snoring as I hiked back toward the store.
Still, one time a young hobo, just a few years older than I was, got close without my knowing. His tennis shoes and jeans were soaked with early dew and his lips were blue from the cold. Frizzy blond hair sprouted from beneath his Minnesota hat. He carried a broken-down fishing rod and a bait can. "Any fishing round here, 'bo?"
The simplicity of his question disarmed me. "Willow Creek is okay further down," I said, "but you've got to use grasshoppers. Cast them in the swirls close to the bank and stay out of sight."
He shook the bait can a little. "Worms is all I got. The grasshoppers are too fast. Tried that yesterday afternoon."
"Not this early. Slap them with your hat. Fish don't mind if the 'hoppers get banged around a little."
"I hate it when they spit," he said. "Right when you stick the hook in them. But I'm wanting breakfast." He paused. "Listen, 'bo. You carrying smokes?"
"No," I said, "but I got a candy bar." I handed him a PayDay.
"Thanks," he said. "These got smaller, didn't they? They used to be big as your fist."
"My stepdad might be riding the rails. Name's Riley Walker. You ever hear of him?"
He shook his head. "Hardly anybody uses his real name. There was a Riley up around Spokane. Short and heavy."
"That's not him," I said, "but thanks."
"If I see him, who should I say is looking?"
"That's okay," I said. "I'm not looking very hard."
